Five Feat… “Surrey”

This is the first of a new occasional series ‘Five Feat…’ (apologies to those who don’t like the slangy abbreviation of ‘featuring’, but it keeps it neat!).

I’ve decided to start at my beginning and have found five books I’ve read that are set or partially set in or adjacent to my home county of Surrey, or at least it was when I was born in Purley in 1960. I lived south of Purley in Coulsdon as a young child, but both were merged into the Borough of Croydon in 1965 which is part of Greater London. However, as many Croydonites still think of themselves as living in Surrey, my Surrey boundaries are historic rather than accurate, so I can include bits on the borders of Croydon. Somedays I’m definitely a Surrey girl, others I’ll turn on my Sarf London side!

Note: Although there are novels by Austen, Dickens et all set in Surrey, I’ve not reviewed them here, nor necessarily read them. I’m sticking to books read, and the title links all refer back to my full reviews.

Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (aka Kingsley Amis)

Published in 1968, this is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Fleming died in 1964. Amis had a strong interest in Bond already, but I’m not sure why he was persuaded to write under a psuedonym. It begins with Bond and Bill Tanner enjoying a round of golf at Sunningdale in leafy Surrey. Bond had been distracted during the golf, leading to Tanner winning the round. They commiserate over drinks. You can tell that Bond is restless:

‘It’s ceasing to be an individual that’s deadly,’ said Bond thoughtfully. ‘Becoming a creature of habit. Since I got back I’ve been coming down here about three Tuesdays out of our, arriving at the same sort of time, going round with one or other of the same three friends, leaving at six thirty or so, driving home each time for the same sort of evening. And seeing nothing wrong with it. A man in my line of business shouldn’t work to a timetable. You understand that.’ […]
‘My existence is falling into a pattern. I must find some way of breaking out of it.’

On the way back from golf, Bond had also taken to calling on spy chief M at his country residence. M was working from home while getting over a respiratory illness. This time it’s different. Bond arrives at M’s to find the door unlatched, and people lying in wait for him. M has been kidnapped, his housekeepers murdered, and they want Bond too, but Bond being Bond, he escapes. All clues then lead to Greece, leaving Surrey way behind.

Outskirts by John Grindrod

Like me, Grindrod is a product of the Croydon/Surrey borders, growing up on ‘the last street in London’ in New Addington – beyond was Green Belt woodland. (Did you know, Surrey is the most wooded county in England? – hence the oak leaves on the crest.) Grindrod’s book is a combination of memoir of growing up there, and a historical examination of these liminal areas, planning law (lightly done) and the creation of the Green Belt and Garden Cities. This was a fascinating book, balanced and non-judgemental which, combined with his family memoir, made it a pleasure to read.

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

As I said, I was born and bred in Purley, Surrey, on the edge of London suburbia; yes, that Purley – ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more’.  So, when a police procedural novel comes along that mentions tackling a nest of vampires in Purley (with a nod to the Pythons), strange acts of violence in Covent Garden, and a Chief Inspector who is the last wizard in England, I was hooked before I had even read a page. Near the novel’s start, DCI Nightingale and trainee wizard DC Grant are on their way to the vampires nest…

…we were into the south London suburbs, hectares of Edwardian two-storey terraced housing interspersed with interchangeable high streets. Occasionally we passed irregular rectangles of green space, the remnants of ancient villages that had grown together like spots of mould on a Petri dish.
The A23 morphed into Purley Way, and we passed a pair of tall chimneys crowned with the IKEA logo. Next stop was Purley, famous place, Purley, know what I mean?

I spent half an hour in traffic on the Purley Way by those bloomin’ chimneys just a few days ago!

Home by Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews’ first volume of memoir takes us from her childhood as a vaudeville star to getting the role of Mary Poppins. Born in Walton-on-Thames (no longer in Surrey either), that childhood was spent in various locations around the county, as her parents split up when WWII began. She lived briefly with her father – whom she later found out wasn’t her biological father at all – it was something her mother threw into the conversation one day, and Julie met but chose not to pursue a relationship with her birth father. As her talent for singing became evident, she was sent to live with her mother and Canadian stepfather, both vaudeville entertainers, it was a poor existence in a London slum, and her stepfather was a sleazy drunk. Soon the young Julie was supporting them all on stage as her career blossomed and they moved back to Surrey! The rest is history in this memoir. Her image is no accident, I think she grew up that way having seen and rejected some of the downsides early on, making this a super read indeed.

Mischief Acts by Zoe Gilbert

I saved my favourite until last. This was my ‘Book of the Year’ in 2022. Zoe Gilbert’s extraordinary second novel is an historical story cycle all set in the same area of South London/Surrey borders (just). She tells the history of the Great North Wood in stories starting in 1392 and moving up the timeline through sixteen stories into the near future, in which the folkloric legend of Herne the Hunter and the Wild Hunt take on different incarnations for different ages, with plenty of Green Man resonances too. From a 1606 Shakespearean Merry Wives of Windsor pastiche, to a 1691 highway robber of questionable gender: from the Crystal Palace fire in 1936 to the 1980s hurricane that brought so many trees down – Gilbert’s stories chart the changing boundaries and uses of the wood over the centuries and postulating what could happen in the future. From prose poem to folktale, from a gardener’s diaries to being away with the fairies, not forgetting the final contemporary and spec fictional tales, the variety of forms she uses are many. Some of the stories are contemplative and subtle, others overt pastiche or full of drama. This novel has drama, comedy and tragedy. It is clever, witty, beguiling and definitely full of mischief. It also has soul, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Have you read any of these?

Can you recommend any books written about or set in where you were born?